The actor Paul Bettany once said some things about you and I wanted to check if they are accurate. Is that OK? Sure.

He said: “In every city he knows the best place to eat oysters…” Yeah, probably. Not the best, but at least I know a couple of good ones. In London, I often go to Bentley’s not only because I like the oysters but also because I like Richard Corrigan’s cooking.

He went on: “He knows how to cut meat properly, so you get the best flavour out of it…” I know how to cut meat, yeah. I know how to cook basically.

“He has untold numbers of children and he’s never wanted his children to respect him.” That’s true, I don’t want them to respect me because I’m their father. The only respect you should have is the one you earn. Respect is such a weird word. I like them to appreciate me for what they think is worth appreciating me for, but not just because I put my penis into their mother. That doesn’t earn me much respect does it? It happens all the time.

You actually have eight children aged between 38 and two – four of them have ended up as actors, including Alexander, the star of True Blood. Why do you think that is? Probably because they’ve seen I enjoy it. Even with limited success as an actor you usually have a more interesting life than in many other professions, so it’s not an unreasonable choice. But they also don’t have any illusions about it: they don’t think it’s glamorous; they don’t think fame is something worth achieving.

And seven out of the eight children are boys. Has that been especially challenging? No, I think girls can be just as challenging. I don’t know what it indicates. A monotonous love life? Obviously I’m doing the same thing every time. I slipped once. I don’t know. But now I’ve snipped it, so no more.

One last thing Paul Bettany said about you: “In the absence of Jesus, he’s a very close second.” Aww, Paul, I don’t think so. No, I’m much more fallible than that. But I think Jesus was pretty fallible too, probably.

After 9/11, you read both the Bible and the Qur’an. What did you learn from that experience? It’s frightening. Everybody says that all the ideas of goodness in the world come from the Bible. That’s absolutely bullshit. The Sermon on the Mount is a very nice piece about being good, but most of the Bible is a very revengeful, childish, brutal God. It’s fantastic stories, but there’s no rational reason to believe anything in it. I didn’t care about religion before 9/11, but I thought I should take a little look at it, because not only did the people who flew into the World Trade Centre claim they had God on their side, but then George W Bush stood up and said he had God on his side as well. So everybody who is religious has God on his side, which is terribly dangerous. And nobody should be sure they have God on their side.

Is there anything you have taken from it? If you read the Bible, you realise that it’s actually good not to cut off the foreskin until it’s necessary. God came to kill Moses in the desert and Moses’s wife saved him by cutting off the foreskin of his child and rubbing it on Moses’s body and then God didn’t kill him. So always have a small child with a foreskin nearby so you can protect yourself against the wrath of God.

In your latest movie, In Order of Disappearance, you play Nils, an upstanding citizen who goes on a killing rampage after his son is killed by drug dealers. Did you identify with him? Well, he is not like me. He is a man who does not have the tools to handle the emotional disaster that he encounters when his son dies and he can’t communicate with his wife any more. So it comes out that he starts killing people. And it’s a very immature and not very reasonable way of reacting of course. But totally understandable on the other hand. If you have children, you know how easy it is to imagine how the caveman in you comes out if they are hurt.

Humility is very important in Scandinavia: the influential Law of Jante dictates that the community is more important than the individual. Is that something you feel personally? You mean, you shouldn’t think you are something just because you are a famous actor? I don’t feel it. Like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is a very good football player, the Swedes are very proud that he’s Swedish. And I think they are proud that I’m Swedish when I’m doing work abroad. The Swedes will look at you twice and then look away because it’s a shyer culture. In America, people come up, “Oh my God, it’s you!” In Sweden they don’t do that, unless you are out in a bar at 2am, because then everybody is your best friend.

This is your fourth film with the director Hans Petter Moland, and you have made multiple films with Lars von Trier. What do you like about these repeat experiences? It’s like children who have good playmates: you meet in the sandbox and have fun together. With Lars, I’ve also benefited from it professionally in a way that I’ve been so encouraged to try things and be brave. That’s when it becomes fun, because it’s much more creative than if you are there to deliver something you decided on beforehand. Then you could work for Royal Mail.

What did you know about Nymphomaniac before you agreed to be in it? Lars called me before he wrote it and said: “Stellan, my next film will be a porno film and I want you to play the lead in it.” Yes, Lars, I will be there. “But you will not get to fuck.” Yes, that’s fine, I’ll come anyway. “But you will show your dick at the end and it will be very floppy.” It’s OK, Lars, I’m coming.

So you’d say yes to Von Trier whatever he was doing? Yeah, I want to play with him. I want to join him in the sandbox. I don’t work only for the results. I spend so much time of my life on a set, I want it to be fun, creative. You never know what a film is going to turn out like anyway. You do your best to make it as good as possible, but that is secondary to the process to me.